Dominate
Dominate is a vampiric Discipline that enables its users to dominate the wills of other beings, forcing them to obey their commands. Level 1 Command The vampire locks eyes with the subject and speaks a one-word command, which the subject must be obey instantly. The order must be clear and straightforward: run, agree, fall, yawn, jump, laugh, surrender, stop, scream, follow. If the command is at all confusing or ambiguous, the subject may respond slowly or perform the task poorly. The subject cannot be ordered to do something directly harmful to herself, so a command like “die” is ineffective. The command may be included in a sentence, thereby concealing the power’s use from others. This effort at subtlety still requires the Kindred to make eye contact at the proper moment and stress the key word slightly. An alert bystander — or even the victim — may notice the emphasis. Still, unless she’s conversant with supernatural powers, the individual is likely to attribute the utterance and the subsequent action to bizarre coincidence. Level 2 Mesmerize With this power, a vampire can verbally implant a false thought or hypnotic suggestion in the subject’s subconscious mind. Both Kindred and target must be free from distraction, since Mesmerize requires intense concentration and precise wording to be effective. The vampire may activate the imposed thought immediately or establish a stimulus that will trigger it later. The victim must be able to understand the vampire, though the two need to maintain eye contact only as long as it takes to implant the idea. Mesmerize allows for anything from simple, precise directives (handing over an item) to complex, highly involved ones (taking notes of someone’s habits and relaying that information at an appointed time). It is not useful for planting illusions or false memories (such as seeing a rabbit or believing yourself to be on fire). A subject can have only one suggestion implanted at any time. Level 3 The Forgetful Mind After capturing the subject’s gaze, the vampire delves into the subject’s memories, stealing or re-creating them at his whim. The Forgetful Mind does not allow for telepathic contact; the Kindred operates much like a hypnotist, asking directed questions and drawing out answers from the subject. The degree of memory alteration depends on what the vampire desires. He may alter the subject’s mind only slightly (quite effective for eliminating memories of the victim meeting or even being fed upon by the vampire) or utterly undo the victim’s memories of her past. The degree of detail used has a direct bearing on how strongly the new memories take hold, since the victim’s subconscious mind resists the alteration. A simplistic or incomplete false memory (“You went to the movies last night”) crumbles much more quickly than does one with more attention to detail (“You thought about texting your girlfriend while you were in line at the new movie theater, but you knew you’d have to turn your phone off once you got inside. You liked the movie well enough, but the plot seemed weak. You were tired after it ended, so you went home, watched a little late-night television, and went to bed.”). Even in its simplest applications, The Forgetful Mind requires tremendous skill and finesse. It’s a relatively simple matter to rifle through a victim’s psyche and rip out the memories of the previous night without knowing what the subject did that evening. Doing so leaves a gap in the victim’s mind, however — a hole that can give rise to further problems down the road. The Kindred may describe new memories, but these recollections seldom have the same degree of realism that the subject’s original thoughts held. As such, this power isn’t always completely effective. The victim may remember being bitten, but believe it to be an animal attack. Greater memories may return in pieces as dreams, or through sensory triggers like a familiar odor or spoken phrase. Even so, months or years may pass before the subject regains enough of her lost memories to make sense of the fragments. A vampire can also sense when a subject’s memories were altered through use of this power, and even restore them, as a hypnotist draws forth suppressed thoughts. Level 4 Conditioning Through sustained manipulation, the vampire can make a subject more pliant to the Kindred’s will. Over time, the victim becomes increasingly susceptible to the vampire’s influence while simultaneously growing more resistant to the corrupting efforts of other Kindred. Gaining complete control over a subject’s mind is no small task, taking weeks or even months to accomplish. Kindred often fill their retainers’ heads with subtle whispers and veiled urges, thereby ensuring these mortals’ loyalty. Yet vampires must pay a high price for the minds they ensnare. Servants Dominated in this way lose much of their passion and individuality. They follow the vampire’s orders quite literally, seldom taking initiative or showing any imagination. In the end, such retainers become like automatons or the walking dead Rationalize The vampire’s victims now believe that anything they do under the influence of Dominate was a result of their own free will, and defend their actions, however absurd. Long-term exposure to this power can lead to severe mental trauma in the victim. Level 5 Possession At this level of mastery, a vampire may supplant their consciousness into the body of another and assume direct control over their host. While they do this, their own body becomes an empty shell, left immobile and vulnerable where they stood. After the possession, the victim is dimly aware that their body is moving and functioning on its own, but have no power to stop it. This ability may not be used on another supernatural creature, nor on another vampire unless the two share a Blood Oath; it is always easiest to hurt those you hold close. Terminal Decree No longer hampered by the self preservation instincts of their victims, the vampire can now issue commands that directly lead to the harm or death of the victim. Mortals can be made to blow their brains out, jump from rooftops, or swallow poison. Vampires can, with a bit of effort, be made to walk into fire or sunlight. Level 6 Chain the Psyche Not content with merely commanding their subjects, some elders apply this power to ensure obedience from recalcitrant victims. Chain the Psyche is a Dominate technique that inflicts incapacitating pain on a target who attempts to break the vampire’s commands. Loyalty With this power in effect, the elder’s Dominate is so strong that other vampires find it almost impossible to break with their own commands. Despite the name, Loyalty instills no special feelings in the victim — the vampire’s commands are simply implanted far more deeply than normal. Obedience While most Kindred must employ Dominate through eye contact, some powerful elders may command loyalty with the lightest brush of a hand. Level 7 Mass Manipulation A truly skilled elder may command small crowds through the use of this power. By manipulating the strongest minds within a given group, a gathering may be directed to the vampire’s will. Still the Mortal Flesh Despite its name, this power may be employed on vampires as well as mortals, and it has left more than one unfortunate victim writhing in agony — or unable to do even that. A vampire who has developed this power is able to override their victim’s body as easily as their mind in order to cut off his senses or even stop their heart. It is rumored that this power once came more easily to vampires, but modern medicine has made the bodies and spirits of mortals more resistant to such manipulations. Level 8 Far Mastery This refinement of Obedience (though the character need not have learned Obedience first) allows the use of Dominate on any subject that the vampire is familiar with, at any time, over any distance. If the elder knows where his target is, he may issue commands as if he were standing face- to-face with his intended victim. Level 9 Speak Through the Blood The power structures of Ancient vampires extend across continents and centuries. This power allows such ancients to wield control over their descendants, even those far outside their geographic spheres of influence. Speak Through the Blood allows an elder to issue commands to every vampire whose lineage can be traced to her — even if the two have never met. Thus, entire broods act to further the goals of sleeping ancients whose existences they may be completely unaware of. The vampires affected by this power rarely act directly to pursue the command they were given, but over a decade or so, their priorities slowly shift until the fulfillment of the ancient's command is among their long-term goals. Speak Through the Blood, because it takes effect so slowly, is rarely recognized as an outside influence, and its victims rationalize their behavior as “growing and changing,” or something to that effect. Level 10 Category:Powers